Lease extension and freehold purchase solicitors in the City of London
The City has a small residential population living inside a commercial district, and that shapes almost every leasehold question here. Most flats sit in mixed-use buildings or on estates owned by the City of London Corporation, and the non-residential proportion of a building decides whether a collective claim is possible at all.
Acting for leaseholders across the City of London
We act for leaseholders across the City of London — the Barbican and Golden Lane estates, Smithfield and Farringdon, Fleet Street and the Temple, Aldgate and the streets around Bank and Cheapside — on lease extensions and collective freehold purchases.
The City is unlike any other London borough for this work. Its residential stock is measured in thousands rather than tens of thousands, and much of it sits above, behind or within buildings that are principally commercial. That single fact governs which rights are available to you.
An individual lease extension under the 1993 Act is available to a qualifying leaseholder whatever the rest of the building is used for. A collective freehold purchase is not: where more than 25 per cent of the internal floor area is in non-residential use, the building is excluded. In the City that test disqualifies a great many buildings, and it is the first thing we check.
Mixed use, and the test that decides your options
Most City buildings containing flats also contain something else — offices, a restaurant, retail at street level, or storage that has never been converted. Whether those parts tip the building over the statutory threshold is a question of measured internal floor area, not of appearance or rateable value.
Where the non-residential parts exceed a quarter of the internal floor area, a collective freehold purchase is not available. Where they fall below it, a claim can proceed provided the other conditions are met, including participation by leaseholders of at least half the flats.
The measurement is worth taking seriously before anyone spends money on it. We have seen buildings assumed to be disqualified that were not, and buildings assumed to qualify that failed once basement and ancillary areas were measured properly. A surveyor should measure before a notice is drafted.
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 raises that limit to 50 per cent, which would bring a significant number of City buildings into scope. That provision has not been commenced, and no date has been set. It is worth knowing about; it is not yet something to wait for.
The part the valuer does not do
A lease extension has two halves. One is the premium — a valuation exercise, and the reason to instruct a specialist surveyor. The other is the document you are handed at the end, and it is where a leaseholder is most exposed and least likely to be looking.
On a statutory claim under the 1993 Act the new lease must be granted on the same terms as the existing lease, save for the additional 90 years, the peppercorn rent, and a narrow set of modifications the Act permits — broadly to reflect changes to the property since the original grant, to deal with an interest the landlord no longer holds, or to remedy a genuine defect.
That is a protection, and it is only worth what the solicitor reading the draft makes of it. Landlords’ solicitors will frequently send a draft that is not a copy of your lease at all, and unless somebody compares the two line by line, the changes complete with the extension and bind you for the next century and a half. We check the draft against your existing lease clause by clause, and we resist anything the legislation does not permit.
What we look for in a landlord’s draft
Changes that alter what you pay. Service charge apportionment quietly replaced with “a fair proportion as determined by the landlord”. Widened recovery provisions for management costs, professional fees and reserve funds. New administration charges. Insurance commission made recoverable. Repairing obligations shifted from landlord to leaseholder.
Changes that alter what you may do. A qualified alterations covenant turned absolute, removing the statutory protection that consent may not be unreasonably withheld. New restrictions on subletting or short-term letting. Rights newly reserved to the landlord to build on the roof or run services through your flat. Wider forfeiture provisions, or indemnity covenants the original lease never contained.
None of this is hypothetical, and very little of it is announced. It arrives as a clean engrossment described as being “in the same form as the existing lease”, and it is found only by comparison. Some modifications are legitimate — our job is to distinguish those from the ones that simply improve the landlord’s position, and to say so in writing before anything is agreed.
Landlords in the City
The City of London Corporation is the freeholder of the Barbican and Golden Lane estates and a substantial landowner elsewhere in the Square Mile. Claims involving the Corporation follow the statutory route like any other, but they are handled by an institution with established procedures and professional advisers, and correspondence is more formal than it might be with a private landlord.
Elsewhere the pattern is mixed. Some buildings are owned by property companies holding a commercial investment where the flats are incidental. Others sit under head leases, so a lease extension involves an intermediate landlord as well as the freeholder, and both must be served.
Where a building is listed, or sits within a conservation area, alterations and consents carry an additional layer. The Barbican is listed, and that affects what can be done to a flat as much as what can be done to the estate.
Areas we cover
Who does what
The valuation
The premium is a question of valuation evidence rather than legal argument, and it needs a surveyor who acts on enfranchisement claims regularly. A specialist valuer appraises the flat, advises on the figure to propose and the range within which to settle, negotiates with the landlord’s surveyor and gives expert evidence at the Tribunal if it comes to that. We work closely with Blakes Chartered Surveyors, and you are free to instruct any valuer you wish.
The legal work
Establishing entitlement, identifying every landlord who must be served, drafting and serving a notice that will withstand scrutiny, running the statutory timetable — and negotiating the terms of the new lease itself. The two roles are not sequential: the figure in your section 42 notice is a joint decision, which is why we involve a valuer from the first conversation rather than after the notice has been drafted.
Or have both handled together
Packaged fixed fees combining the legal work, the valuation and the negotiation are available through extension.lease, run jointly by Arcadia Law and Blakes Chartered Surveyors — often the simplest and most cost-effective route for a single flat.
Estimate your premium
Our lease extension calculator gives an indicative premium range from three figures: the unexpired term, the ground rent payable and the value of your flat. It is a starting point for a conversation rather than a valuation, but it will tell you the order of magnitude before you commit to anything.
If your flat has fewer than 90 years remaining, or a ground rent that rises at intervals of less than twenty years, it is worth running the numbers now rather than at the point you decide to sell.
Fees
Fixed fees wherever possible, agreed before we start. The figures below are starting points for straightforward matters; we will give you a tailored quote once we have seen the lease.
Group and block discounts are available where several leaseholders in the same building instruct together, priced as one exercise rather than a claim per flat. Freehold purchases are priced per participating flat from £1,250 + VAT. On a statutory claim you are also responsible for the landlord’s reasonable legal and valuation costs, which can be challenged — the costs of the negotiation itself and of any Tribunal proceedings are not recoverable from you.
Our other work for the City of London clients
Lease extensions and freehold purchases are the bulk of what we do, but not all of it. Residential conveyancing — sale and purchase of houses and flats, freehold and leasehold — sits naturally alongside a lease extension where a sale is in prospect. Landlords and management companies — service charges, section 20 consultation, arrears, consents, company filings and the transactional work every sale generates. And the documents: deeds of variation, licences to alter, lease and title reviews, and independent legal advice for guarantors and directors.
Why instruct Arcadia Law
We read the lease you are being given, not just the one you have — every draft is compared clause by clause against the existing lease, and anything the legislation does not permit is resisted. Specialists, not generalists, and members of the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners. We act across all thirty-two London boroughs and know how the local authority legal departments and the larger investor freeholders operate. We act for landlords as well as leaseholders, which is why we know where a landlord’s position will and will not hold — conflicts are checked before we take instructions. Tribunal and court where it is warranted, weighed against the costs, the risk and the time, which for many claims points the other way.
Common questions
Can we buy the freehold of a building that is mostly offices?
Not if the non-residential parts exceed a quarter of the internal floor area. That is a measured test, so it is worth establishing properly rather than assuming either way. Individual lease extensions remain available regardless.
Does the Barbican being listed affect a lease extension?
Not the statutory right itself. Listing affects what alterations can be made and what consents are needed, which matters for licences to alter rather than for extending the term.
Is the City of London Corporation different to deal with?
The process is the same statutory process. In practice claims are handled formally and through professional advisers, which tends to mean fewer surprises but little informal flexibility.
Should we wait for the reforms to raise the limit to 50 per cent?
That provision is in the 2024 Act but has not been commenced and has no date. Meanwhile leases shorten and premiums generally rise. We would advise on your particular facts rather than on a timetable nobody controls.
Our building has a head lease. Does that change anything?
It adds a party. The intermediate landlord must be served alongside the freeholder, and the drafting has to deal with both interests. It is common in the City and entirely workable.
Tell us about your the City of London flat
The address, the unexpired term and the ground rent if you know them, and who your freeholder is. If you have received an offer from your landlord, send that too. We will tell you where you stand, what a claim is likely to cost, whether the statutory or voluntary route suits you better — and, if an offer has been made, what is actually in it. The first conversation is at no cost.